by Scheer, Ron
I walked Fred to the patio and attached an extra length of rope to the long lead on her bridle, tying her to a built-in grill. The tall and plentiful grass around the house offered her a place to graze. Now I was ready to see what was in those big sheds.
Their big, wide doors slid to either side on a track. When opened, they would be more than wide enough to drive a combine through. I tried pushing them apart, but only managed to produce a small rattling. It was a padlock. It was too dark to see much of it, but when I held it to test the mechanism, it was heavy and sturdy.
I walked over to the building on the right, but had no more luck there. Dejected, I scuffed my way back over to the house and tried the front door. The padlocks on the big steel buildings should have warned me—it too was locked.
Rushing back to Fred, I searched the saddlebags for a pry bar. Thanks to Josh, I possessed the skill to slip the lock. Finding one, I hurried back to the door and tried it the way Josh showed me. The door stayed shut and locked. Trying a few more times didn’t help. Either I was doing something wrong, or this was a different kind of lock.
I almost hurled the bar through one of the windows. What stopped me was the glass. Even out here in the country, breaking what I couldn’t replace wasn’t justified. Beaten, I sat by the front door. I’d hoped for a bed, or a couch to sleep on, but it wasn’t to be. With a resigned sigh, my eyelids drifted closed.
The sunrise woke me. At first it was just a small arc of dull yellow light, but it quickly grew larger in both size and intensity. I tried to rise, only to find my lower legs were numb. Rolling to my knees, the pain in my thighs erupted like a blacksmith’s hammer hitting hot steel.
Moaning in pain, I lay on the patio. Rising to my feet a little later, after my calves had stopped stinging, I was forced to look down from the new pain of a crick in my neck. The useless pry bar lay where it had fallen. I shook my head and mumbled, “Uh, uh, give me jolts, put a bullet in me, I don’t care. I ain’t bending over.”
I stumbled past the patio to the pump. The handle was heavier than it had been the night before. It took two tries to get it up and the water running. This time, I checked the water before I drank. Sure enough, the water came out a dirty, reddish brown. It cleared almost immediately, and the water ran clean and cool. Cupping my hands under the tap, I splashed my face.
As the refreshing drops ran off, the skin on my cheeks was tight where dirt still clung. I repeated the soaking several more times, and then stooped over the tap to get a drink. My back and thighs protested, but either I was getting used to the pain or my stiff muscles were loosening.
Remembering that Fred would also need a drink, I started for the grill. Fred was gone.
Why had I expected something to actually go right?
Turning in a full circle, I saw the house buried in the side of the hill, the two large outbuildings, the pump on its concrete slab, the gravel drive leading to the road, trees in the distance, and a barbwire fence, but no sign of Fred.
“Fred!” I yelled.
There was no response. What had I been expecting? A whinny and for her to come running?
A dread built in me. It was the guilt of a broken trust. Sawyer let me use Fred in the good faith that I would take care of her and bring her safely back. I needed to find her.
I walked between the earth-covered house and the large shed to my right. I turned to the east, and sure enough, head down and contently munching away in a field of clover was Sawyer’s horse. Relief flowed through me, erasing all the guilt and despair. It was enough to make me run to Fred.
I got three steps. It would have been four, but my thighs screamed in protest. I was almost sure they yelled, “Oh no you don’t!” as I pitched forward. Luckily thick, soft grass caught me.
Crawling to my feet, I thought, okay, let’s try walking. One slow step at a time I reached Fred. I gave her a gentle pat on the shoulder and slowly led her back around front.
We strolled to where the propane grill stood up out of the concrete patio. The extra rope was still securely tied to its base. Grabbing it, and letting it flow through my hand, Fred and I walked off the distance to where it ended.
I expected that Fred chewed it or broken it, but she couldn’t be blamed for what I found, nor could the rope. My knot tying skills, however, needed work. The knot still made its lump in the rope, it just wasn’t holding anything.
With a jerk of her head, Fred pulled the lead out of my other hand. She broke into a trot and disappeared back behind the shed.
“Get back here!” I yelled.
She didn’t listen.
I’m sure she was quiet content to eat clover all day, but I couldn’t chance her running off. There was plenty of good grass by the grill, so it wasn’t like I was starving her. With a sigh, I went around the shed and retrieved her.
That was when I saw the back door of the house. It hadn’t occurred to me that a house built into the side of a hill would even have a back door, but the small hill the house rested in sloped down, leaving a perfect access for a rear entry. I was glad nobody was around to see how dumb I looked this morning—except Fred, and I was pretty sure she wouldn’t tell anybody.
Leading her back to the pump, I filled her nosebag with water. As she drank, I cursed myself for not looking for a back door in the first place. Sleeping would have been a whole lot more comfortable.
After returning Fred to the grill a second time, I remembered the hobbles, and took them off the saddle to put them on her. Handling the hobbles gave me the feeling that I’d forgotten something. Something important, about Fred, but whatever it was escaped me. I shrugged it off for now. Fred had food and I’d just given her a drink, so it couldn’t be too important.
I painfully picked up the pry bar from the patio. At the back door, I tried the handle. I didn’t expect it be unlocked, but I wasn’t going to look like a fool again this day, even to myself.
The door was locked, but a few seconds work with the pry bar and it swung open. I hoped there was something inside that would help me get into those sheds. The keys to those padlocks would be a great start.
Chapter Fourteen
The disgustingly sweet smell of mold and rot filled my nose as I crossed the threshold. Not bad enough to make me vomit, but close. It reminded me of two-day-old potato peels. Yuck.
I entered a kitchen. A rounded counter divided it from the next room, where a hallway branched to the right. I assumed it led to the bedrooms.
The dim light created a spooky atmosphere. Remembering Sawyer’s warning about skeletons, I hoped I wouldn’t find any.
Heading into the living room, I found the front door. I turned the lock on the handle of the door and pulled. Nothing happened. A closer look revealed a second lock, a deadbolt. It not only explained why the door wouldn’t open now, but also why my little trick with the pry bar had failed last night.
Releasing the bolt, I opened the door and let the sunlight pour in. Throwing open the window curtains proved better than lighting a hundred candles. The room sprang to life in full color.
At first, the off-white walls, gray carpet, and dark blue overstuffed furniture gave the room a homey touch, but the more I looked around, the more unnerved I became. It wasn’t just the dirt ceiling overhead, or the cave-like way the sunlight shone through the door and windows, the thing that bothered me most was the exact placement of everything, from the chairs at the table, to the remote that sat on top of the TV. Even the little cloth arm-covers for the sofa and chairs weren’t a smidge out of place.
This perfection bothered me. In my RV, I always left a few things lying about, but I wasn’t a slob. When it got dirty, I cleaned it up. This specific attention to detail was like looking into the mind of a person that only saw things one way. It was a mind that could never see the other side of the story. There was no room for forgiveness in such a mind. It made me think of the mayor.
I shook off that depressing thought. The mayor was not what I wanted to be thinking about—or the deer, or ev
en Chane. I needed to find those keys.
Moving down the hallway, I came to a bathroom, and then a bedroom that was just as neat and orderly as the living room. I opened a few drawers in the dresser, but they were all empty. Further down the hallway was a final room. It, too, was a bedroom, but the ambient light filtering in from the living room and kitchen was so faint, I could barely see. Thankfully, there was no sign of any skeletons, but searching this room would require more light.
Sawyer’s words came back to haunt me. “There’s always going to be something you didn’t take and wished you had.” Even though the mayor would’ve had a fit, a flashlight would have been useful. I’d have to settle for using LEDs and homemade cells.
Heading back to the kitchen, I made a mental list of the items needed. I hadn’t expected to find a sign that said, “The keys are here,” but that’s almost exactly what was hanging on the wall behind the now only half-open door.
Gravity, a bad hinge, the house settling, or some other force let the door drift back so that it now stood perpendicular to the wall. I wanted to kick myself. Had I simply looked behind the door when I first entered the kitchen, I’d have seen the four-lettered wooden plaque with hooks. The sign was made of a beautiful dark wood, walnut maybe. Each letter was as precisely cut as only the machines of old, or a master craftsman, could make. Those four masterfully worked letters spelled the word KEYS.
It was almost insulting, the obviousness of the sign. Thankfully no one saw me. Regardless of what I’d told myself earlier, I’d made myself look like an idiot—again.
Only one key ring hung from the plaque. Six keys, arranged by size, dangled from it like an inverted staircase. I scooped up the keys and hurried out the door as fast as the pain in my legs would let me.
I wanted to run to the sheds and try the keys. I wanted to fling the doors wide and find, on my first try, the alternator my town so desperately needed.
The sight of a persistent horse stopped me.
She was back in the clover, contentedly munching away. I threw both hands in the air and yelled, “Frrreeeddd!”
She poked her head up just enough to roll her eye at me and flick her ears. I’m positive if she could talk she’d have said, “Duh, I’m not going to eat that grass out front when there’s good clover back here.”
I wondered if I put the hobbles on wrong, which wouldn’t have surprised me one bit. But when I checked, for once I’d actually done something right. The hobbles were on the way they were supposed to be. “How did you get back here?” I pondered out loud.
It was only a few seconds later when Fred gave me my answer. By walking. That was all it took. She walked from a gnawed patch of clover to a fresh one. I guess I hadn’t really thought it out—the hobbles were never designed to keep a horse from moving. They were only designed to keep a horse from moving fast.
I left Fred to graze, and hoped she’d be where I could find her when I was done in the sheds.
The pain in my thighs was easing. Good thing, because no matter what I found, I’d soon be back in the saddle.
Reaching the shed doors without dropping the key ring was something I was quite proud of. Only the two smallest keys looked like they would fit the padlock. The first one slid into the lock, but didn’t turn. I whispered, “Please, please, please, work,” as I tried the second.
Holding the key between my thumb and forefinger, I slowly and steadily twisted. Nothing happened. Pushing a little harder got me nothing. I pushed harder still, fearing the key might snap off inside the lock. Instead, there was click and the arm of the lock popped free from the body.
In a rush, I slipped the arm out of the hasp on the doors and let the padlock fall to the ground, keys and all. They disappeared in the tall grass. I bent down and ran my hands through the rough blades. I know it only took a few moments to recover the keys and the padlock. It seemed like forever.
Hooking the padlock back into one side of the hasp, I put the keys safely in my pocket. The steel door was stuck. The rollers hadn’t moved in their tracks for a long time. The first shove was the worst, but once those old rollers began turning the door moved much easier.
A tractor rested on one side of the building. The other half of the shed held two vehicles, both under tarps. Guessing by their shapes, one was a pickup and the other a car. It didn’t matter. It wasn’t what I was looking for.
I moved across the front of the house to the second shed. Naturally, I used the wrong key first. This lock wasn’t as stiff as the first. It easily released when I turned the right key. Fighting the doors, I pushed with all my strength. The doors grudgingly opened an inch at a time against the thick grass and weeds impeding them. I couldn’t get either one fully open, still, the opening was wide enough for four horses to pass through side by side.
Inside sat a planter and plow, which my gaze quickly passed over. My heart beat like a hammer when I spied a familiar shape inside the shed—a combine. It only took a second for my heart to calm. This combine was red, not green. I walked around its side anyway to check the numbers. Sure enough, they weren’t even close.
My foot found the side of the shed. After all the effort I’d gone through locating the keys, fooling around with a horse who had a mind of her own, and struggling with the locks and doors, I needed to vent. I kicked the shed a second time, then a third. After the third kick, enough pain transferred from my toes to my brain that I stopped. It only took a few minutes to close and lock the sheds. Then I did the same with the front door of the house, remembering the deadbolt. After hanging the keys in the kitchen where I’d found them, I locked the back door and pulled it shut. It seemed right to leave things the way I’d found them.
I trudged my way to Fred. Several patches of bare earth revealed where she’d eaten the clover right down to the ground. Despite my failure with the combine, I smiled. At least Fred was well fed.
Removing the hobbles, I took Fred over to the pump, and we both took a long drink. It was only when I put my foot in the stirrup and grabbed the saddle horn that I realized what it was that I’d forgotten. Fred’s saddle. She’d worn it the whole night through.
Could she be ridden? Would the girth chafe her? Or would something worse happen. Moving her away from the pump and onto the gravel drive, I took the saddle off and groomed her. She nickered in appreciation. I checked her for any roughness or irritation along where the girth went, but found nothing.
Fred seemed fine, and I set about saddling her again. Not wanting her to be uncomfortable after being saddled all night I left the girth a little loose.
Placing my foot in the stirrup and my hand on the horn, I started to mount and found myself on my back in the dirt. Fred turned her head and snorted. I swear that horse was laughing at me.
It took longer to brush the pieces of gravel off my clothes than it did to tighten the girth. I finally mounted up.
Birdsong carried from a roadside tree, and accompanied Fred and me as we continued east. I figured the best way to keep from getting lost was to continue down this same road. It would be easy enough to turn around and follow it back to the blacktop.
The next house was near a crossroad. I stayed mounted. There was only one outbuilding large enough to hold a harvester, a crumbling wooden shed with an open front. I could clearly see a tractor and some other farm implements, but no combine.
Fred and I continued on, wasting the rest of the morning, stopping every now and then to check sheds and barns. The day grew warmer as the cool breeze from earlier disappeared. I stopped at several sheds and found more combines. None of them matched the numbers.
Riding along, I tried not to think about an unhappy mayor, banishment, or my overdue jolts. Instead, I tried to focus on Chane, but thoughts of her only made me remember that she was a captive.
Somewhere around the tenth combine, I wondered why we were still using our rusty old machine. Why hadn’t the mayor called for a Forager to bring us a better one? It would mean pulling some people away from their usual work and riggi
ng up some way to get one back to town, but I didn’t think it would be all that difficult. If nothing else, at least we’d have a backup. Was it possible the mayor didn’t know all these combines were out here? Deciding that when I got back to town, providing the mayor didn’t banish me on the spot, I’d ask.
Around midday, I stopped at the next promising site. The house must have been built not long before the Collapse. It looked newer than any house I’d seen. The one steel outbuilding was painted a dull red to match the brick of the house.
The sun was directly overhead and my stomach rumbled. I pulled two apples out of the food bag and gave one to Fred.
This outbuilding had the same type of large panel doors as the first place, except this one came equipped with a regular-sized door on one side. I slipped the lock with my pry bar only to discover the shed held only cars. There were five under tarps, and one sitting without a cover. On the car’s gray door was a magnetic sign.
SCOTT COOK PHARMACY
DELIVERING YOUR TRUST
SINCE 1931
SCOTT COOK was the name printed in big bold letters on the pharmacy on Main Street. I thought of Sawyer and the infection in his leg and of Dr. White cursing the lack of medicines. Peeking in the window of the car, looking to see if I could spot any of the helpful remedies promised on the side. The car was empty.
I strolled over to the first of the covered cars, thinking I might find some medicine in one of them. Dust flew everywhere as I pulled off the cover. This car was older. It displayed the same signage, except in paint. Moving on, each car I uncovered was older than the last, but each at one time had delivered medicines for Scott Cook, or his descendants. None of them held any medicines.
With nothing left to see in the shed, I closed the door behind me and stared at the house. Had Scott Cook taken his work home? Were there medicines in the house just waiting to be foraged? I pondered over those questions while chomping the apple.